There was a time when I argued against increasing anyone’s federal taxes. After all, our Monetarily Sovereign federal government has the unlimited ability to create its own sovereign currency, the dollar, which it does ad hoc, simply by spending.

Thus, the federal government neither needs, nor uses, nor even retains tax dollars. The tax dollars you send to the federal government disappear from the money supply and so, functionally are destroyed.

(This is unlike state and local tax dollars, which remain in the money supply, are retained by the state and governments, and are necessary for state and local government spending.)

Because federal taxes leave the money supply, they reduce Gross Domestic Product, and they negatively affect the entire economy. Every dollar you send to the federal government is a dollar removed from the economy, impoverishing the economy.

Every dollar the federal government deficit spends is added to the money supply, enriching the economy.

All but one of the Ten Steps to Prosperity — this one — involve either federal tax reduction or federal spending increases. They all — but this one — increase the money supply, and thereby, grow the economy.

Since all the federal tax dollars paid by anyone, including the rich, disappear from the money supply, and therefore are recessive, why does this step, Step 8., involve increasing taxes on the rich?

The single most important problem facing America and the world — even more important than the suicidal push to reduce the money supply — is the large and growing Gap between the rich and the rest.

That large and growing Gap is a direct threat to Democracy, for it gives the rich excessive power to bribe our politicians, to own our media, and even to influence universities and their economists.

We see it happening again and again in America, with the Supreme Court repeatedly expanding the 1st Amendment’s free speech rights to include greater amounts of money.

Freedom of spending grew from Buckley v. Valeo (limits on election spending are unconstitutional), to First National Bank of Boston v Bellotti (corporations can contribute to ballot initiative campaigns) to Citizens United v FEC (corporations and unions can contribute unlimited funds to political campaigns).

Although some technical spending limits still remain, the true function of these decisions is to give the rich the unlimited power to influence not only elections but the law.

That is the definition of a dictatorship: Complete control over the law.

And we have come dangerously close to crossing that line if we are not already there.

In a dictatorship, the people are powerless. All branches of government answer to one man or one small group.

In a dictatorship, the presidency, the congress, the supreme court and the local governors are dominated by one party, and that party is dominated by one man.

Though supposedly above partisan politics, the courts become political organizations, seldom ruling against the dominant party.

A dictator typically takes action against any news media that disagree with him, or which publish unflattering stories. This action can include lawsuits, expulsion from meetings, claims that the media provides “fake news,” and other forms of disparagement.

It can graduate to arrests, imprisonment or other reprisals.

As it true with all dictatorships, those close to the dictator are the rich and privileged. Laws don’t apply to them, except when they fall into disfavor, in which case they are summarily dismissed.

Though those appointed to high office are in sympathy with the dictator, they often are incompetent, or they disagree with the putative purpose of the office.

The assigned head of a veteran’s benefit organization might have no knowledge of veteran’s affairs or organization skills; the head of an ecology department might deny global warming; the head of an education department might oppose educating the poor; the head of a justice department might be a bigot opposed to justice.

In a dictatorship, family members are given high posts, and those close to the dictator reap fortunes from their influence. The dictator becomes massively wealthy from the laws he creates.

Dictators claim there is an emergency — a danger only they can deal with.

One commonality among dictatorship beginnings: The future dictator often is greeted with open arms as the person who will save the people from some nemesis, whether it be poverty, aliens, or a previous dictator.

Dictators facilitate this attitude by creating scapegoats: Foreigners, people of a certain religion, color or belief, or other politicians. Hatred and fear are the dictator’s greatest weapons.

Hatred and fear allow the people to blame the scapegoat for their misery, rather than blaming the dictator — or themselves.

In accepting the dictator, the people do not realize they are creating their own hardship. Later, when it is too late, and they have surrendered their power to the devil, do they and their children begin a seemingly endless period of suffering.

When they lose all ability to extricate themselves from the pit they have dug, the people enter a period of “hopeless justification.”They tell themselves there is nothing they can do about it, and anyway, things could be worse, or were worse in the past.

Though dictatorship thrives on an income/wealth/power Gap between the chosen few and the general populace, it begins with any one of the Gaps: Income, or wealth, or power.

The process is:

A Gap is created

The people feel the negative effects of the Gap

Resentment builds

A savior promises to narrow the Gap

The people give the savior their power

Too late, the people realize the savior has enslaved them.

The dictator demands ever more appeasements from the ever more destitute and powerless people.

Because dictatorships always begin with a Gap, our currently large and growing Gap is the greatest danger to our democracy and our lifestyles.

Narrowing the Gap requires not just lifting the bottom but trimming the top.

It simply would not be possible to provide the 99.9% with enough benefits to narrow the Gap in any meaningful way. Bill Gates reportedly owns $70 billion. To get to that level, he must have been earning more than $10 billion a year.

Pick any acceptable Gap (100 to 1? 1000 to 1?), and the lowest paid American would have to receive an unrealistic boost to narrow the Gap to an acceptable level.

To trim the top, Step 8 proposes that we increase tax rates on the very rich, and not just the rates, but the overall tax system. Their income that is not taxed or lightly taxed, should be fully taxed; their wealth should be taxed; their inheritances should be taxed without exceptions.

Unless we understand and act against the growing Gap, we will continue the way we are going, and slide deeper, ever deeper, into the black hole of dictatorship.

Ten Steps To Prosperity:1. ELIMINATE FICA (Ten Reasons to Eliminate FICA )Although the article lists 10 reasons to eliminate FICA, there are two fundamental reasons:*FICA is the most regressive tax in American history, widening the Gap by punishing the low and middle-income groups, while leaving the rich untouched, and*The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, neither needs nor uses FICA to support Social Security and Medicare.2. FEDERALLY FUNDED MEDICARE — PARTS A, B & D, PLUS LONG TERM CARE — FOR EVERYONE (H.R. 676, Medicare for All )This article addresses the questions:
*Does the economy benefit when the rich can afford better health care than can the rest of Americans?
*Aside from improved health care, what are the other economic effects of “Medicare for everyone?”
*How much would it cost taxpayers?
*Who opposes it?”
3. PROVIDE A MONTHLY ECONOMIC BONUS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN AMERICA (similar to Social Security for All) (The JG (Jobs Guarantee) vs the GI (Guaranteed Income) vs the EB (Guaranteed Income)) Or institute a reverse income tax.
This article is the fifth in a series about direct financial assistance to Americans:

Economic growth should include the “bottom” 99.9%, not just the .1%, the only question being, how best to accomplish that. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) favors giving everyone a job. Monetary Sovereignty (MS) favors giving everyone money. The five articles describe the pros and cons of each approach.
4. FREE EDUCATION (INCLUDING POST-GRAD) FOR EVERYONE Five reasons why we should eliminate school loans
Monetarily non-sovereign State and local governments, despite their limited finances, support grades K-12. That level of education may have been sufficient for a largely agrarian economy, but not for our currently more technical economy that demands greater numbers of highly educated workers.
Because state and local funding is so limited, grades K-12 receive short shrift, especially those schools whose populations come from the lowest economic groups. And college is too costly for most families.
An educated populace benefits a nation, and benefitting the nation is the purpose of the federal government, which has the unlimited ability to pay for K-16 and beyond.
5. SALARY FOR ATTENDING SCHOOL
Even were schooling to be completely free, many young people cannot attend, because they and their families cannot afford to support non-workers. In a foundering boat, everyone needs to bail, and no one can take time off for study.
If a young person’s “job” is to learn and be productive, he/she should be paid to do that job, especially since that job is one of America’s most important.
6. ELIMINATE FEDERAL TAXES ON BUSINESS
Businesses are dollar-transferring machines. They transfer dollars from customers to employees, suppliers, shareholders and the federal government (the later having no use for those dollars). Any tax on businesses reduces the amount going to employees, suppliers and shareholders, which diminishes the economy. Ultimately, all business taxes reduce your personal income.
7. INCREASE THE STANDARD INCOME TAX DEDUCTION, ANNUALLY. (Refer to this.) Federal taxes punish taxpayers and harm the economy. The federal government has no need for those punishing and harmful tax dollars. There are several ways to reduce taxes, and we should evaluate and choose the most progressive approaches.
Cutting FICA and business taxes would be a good early step, as both dramatically affect the 99%. Annual increases in the standard income tax deduction, and a reverse income tax also would provide benefits from the bottom up. Both would narrow the Gap.8. TAX THE VERY RICH (THE “.1%) MORE, WITH HIGHER PROGRESSIVE TAX RATES ON ALL FORMS OF INCOME. (TROPHIC CASCADE)
There was a time when I argued against increasing anyone’s federal taxes. After all, the federal government has no need for tax dollars, and all taxes reduce Gross Domestic Product, thereby negatively affecting the entire economy, including the 99.9%.
But I have come to realize that narrowing the Gap requires trimming the top. It simply would not be possible to provide the 99.9% with enough benefits to narrow the Gap in any meaningful way. Bill Gates reportedly owns $70 billion. To get to that level, he must have been earning $10 billion a year. Pick any acceptable Gap (1000 to 1?), and the lowest paid American would have to receive $10 million a year. Unreasonable.
9. FEDERAL OWNERSHIP OF ALL BANKS (Click The end of private banking and How should America decide “who-gets-money”?)
Banks have created all the dollars that exist. Even dollars created at the direction of the federal government, actually come into being when banks increase the numbers in checking accounts. This gives the banks enormous financial power, and as we all know, power corrupts — especially when multiplied by a profit motive.
Although the federal government also is powerful and corrupted, it does not suffer from a profit motive, the world’s most corrupting influence.
10. INCREASE FEDERAL SPENDING ON THE MYRIAD INITIATIVES THAT BENEFIT AMERICA’S 99.9% (Federal agencies)Browse the agencies. See how many agencies benefit the lower- and middle-income/wealth/ power groups, by adding dollars to the economy and/or by actions more beneficial to the 99.9% than to the .1%.
Save this reference as your primer to current economics. Sadly, much of the material is not being taught in American schools, which is all the more reason for you to use it.

The Ten Steps will grow the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and you.

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11 Responses to Ten Steps to Prosperity: Step 8: Tax the very rich more (dictatorship warning)

“To trim the top, Step 8 proposes that we increase tax rates on the very rich…”

RMM-Ironically, the people you wish to cut are the ones who are in control. Step 8 may be the fatal flaw. It would be like asking a policeman to give you his handcuffs and gun before he places you under arrest.

Even if you can raise taxes on the rich, they’ll find a way to eventually compensate to retrieve their loss at our expense, such as in the case of wage-price inflation or some other offset. They just won’t sit back, do nothing, and let it happen without a full, in-depth understanding of MS.

Sort of like a new currency. It’ll work if it’s accepted. The first clue will be when I see it on the cover of a MAJOR PUBLICATION: Time, The Atlantic, The Economist………

So Trump did rant and rave at the press on Thursday. But not at all the press. He has never attacked Breitbart, the vehicle for white supremacist falsehoods piloted by his Rasputin, Neofascist Steve Bannon (White House chief of strategy and National Security Council éminence grise).

And that is the real significance of his accusation that the major corporate media outlets are “fake news.” What he means by that is their refusal to adopt a white supremacist editorial line.

He doesn’t actually mind fake news, or he would fire Bannon and dissociate himself from Britbart, which is mostly filled with far-right racist falsehoods. There was, for instance, the fake news about the alleged Muslim immigrant mass rapes in Cologne a little over a year ago. Breitbart beat the drums for it, but the the story was not true. Or then there was the phony story about Muslims burning a church in Germany, also played up by Breitbart and also not true. Trump is deeply influenced by Bannon’s insane conspiracy theories; if you want to know why he keeps saying false and/or unbalanced things, consider that he gets his news from alt-Neonazi toilet paper like Breitbart.

Two members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Reps. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.) and Norma Torres (D-Calif.), said they were asked to leave a meeting Thursday between lawmakers and the top U.S. immigration official, while others said they were barred entry in the first place.

Gutiérrez and Torres both expressed incredulity after being kicked out of the meeting between lawmakers and acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director Thomas Homan—one of them by an aide to House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and the other by a GOP lawmaker himself.

The meeting, requested by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus to discuss the recent uptick in immigration raids and detentions, was originally scheduled for Tuesday—but ICE canceled at the last minute, saying too many people had expressed interest in attending. The agency said Homan would meet with a bipartisan group of lawmakers instead.

Upon rescheduling, the Huffington Post reports, “ICE set the invite list for the meeting and initially excluded the entire Congressional Hispanic Caucus, according to aides from both parties, before agreeing to include a small number of members.”